


However Long the Night

by lightbenderlin



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Descriptions of Apt Building FIre, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Death, but their death is described vaguely, minor unnamed characters die offscreen, we got A HAPPY CHARACTER FINALLY BREAKING DOWN FROM HIS STRESSFUL JOB, we got EMOTIONAL INTIMACY, we got FOUND FAMILY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightbenderlin/pseuds/lightbenderlin
Summary: There is always work for a firefighter, even months after the Burnish cease to be. Fire is an unpredictable opponent. Sometimes, you can't save everyone. This is something Galo knew, from experience. But that didn't make a loss hurt any less.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 10
Kudos: 138





	However Long the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/gifts).



> Inspired by [this tragiaclly beautiful drawing](https://twitter.com/hua1071/status/1234263080953098240) of Galo crying by hua1071 (Twitter). 
> 
> And dedicated to Saro, who ripped my heart out by sending the drawing to me.

"However long the night, the dawn will break." Proverb.

* * *

The drive back to the station was silent as the grave. Not a one of the Burning Rescue Squad could muster a word for one another as they pulled into the firehouse and vacated the truck. There was still another four hours to go of this twenty-four hour shift and the only thing they knew for certain was that each and every one of them hoped they didn't get another call tonight. 

Galo was the first off. He made a beeline for his bunk, determinedly ignoring the looks his friends cast him. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to look back and see them look to him for the unfailing optimism they expected from him. It dropped away from him, like the bottom of his stomach, like the floor of the burning building eight stories up, like the three people they hadn't gotten to in time. 

Like the three people who died in a fire because Galo hadn't made it to them in time to save them. 

They all set about tasks to busy their hands and minds. Lucia tapped silently at the computer. Ignis vanished into his office. Aina was probably on the roof, still in the helicopter. Varys and Remy got back on the truck; Galo could hear them tinkering around with their mechs. Galo should probably tend to his too, but he couldn't stand to look at it. It looked too much like failure. 

The tears didn't come until he sank on the bunk and then he couldn't stop. This wasn't the first time they hadn't got everyone out, but those times were rare and every time hit Galo like the first. To their credit, even though the bunks were in plain sight, his friends let him cry it out in solitude. They knew from experience: consoling each other right now sounded empty, hollow, like the shell of a burnt out building with its eighth floor in its basement. There wasn't even room to place the blame on Burnish fire or someone to fight; the Promare had been gone for months. Firefighters just always had work and this time, they hadn't been fast enough.

Galo's bunk stirred behind him. He cried quietly, and dropped his face into his hands to hide it, but it was still enough to wake his forgotten bunkmate.

The Promare were gone, but the ex-Mad Burnish were still displaced. People who had known civilian Burnish didn't mind them, but the faces of the rebellion were rarely welcome. Lio, despite not being a firefighter, had found sanctuary in the firehouse. Mostly because Promepolitans still blamed him for the fall of their hero, for the vandalism of Mad Burnish, but they wouldn't trespass on the beacon of hope against that terror--Burning Rescue's HQ and the squad who rallied behind Lio and Galo when the Parnassus failed. 

Galo had offered to let Lio stay in his apartment. Lio refused. Galo offered instead his bunk at the firehouse. That one, Lio had accepted.

Galo could feel him sit up, and Lio leaned sleep-warm against his back. It wouldn't have been comfortable for Lio; Galo couldn't stop the little shakes and hiccups from the crying, try as he might to stop jostling Lio. Trying to stop really only made them worse, but Lio pressed his cheek to Galo's spine, pressed his body closer, a slim line of sunshine incarnate at his back. Lio's temperature still ran hotter than any regular human. 

The heat was terrible and comforting all at once. 

"Bad night?" Lio's voice was rough, groggy from interrupted sleep. Galo thought he should apologize for that, but his voice didn't work. He nodded and knew Lio would feel it. "Wanna talk about it?" Head shake, hiccup; no.

"Then come here." That warmth moved away (oh thank god, oh no bring it back) and Lio pulled at the back of his shirt. Galo complied, or at least he let Lio pull him backward. Laying perpendicular across a bunk already too small for him was a feat of discomfort. Doing it with Lio's legs trapped beneath him was mega uncomfortable. 

"Oh come on, give me a hand here, Galo," Lio huffed. 

Galo did not. Lio trashtalked him under his breath as he squirmed out from under him. "Everything's got to be a scene with you, but Aina says _I'm_ dramatic. Come on, scoot up. Oh my fucking god Galo, I _will_ move you myself. _Fine_. Okay!" The effort was entirely Lio's, but it ended with Galo curled on the bunk, back against the wall and hiccups halfway between "still crying" and "laughing" because it was just a little ridiculous. Lio practically threw himself into the space against Galo's chest. 

Getting two people in the little firehouse bunks with any semblance of comfort was a miracle only Lio had managed to achieve. He shifted until their limbs were arranged in a way that wouldn't numb them in ten minutes and his head was tucked under Galo's chin and he could clearly hear the wheezing rattle where tears hadn't quite given up the fight in Galo's chest.

"If you're going to cry into my hair, just don't get snot in it," Lio said, gruff permission. Galo cried quietly, about the only thing he could do quietly, but he did not cry pretty. He smothered his face into the thin bunk pillow, but still got tears and drool (and snot) in Lio's hair. He cried and clung to Lio, and Lio held him back fiercely. Maybe because if he didn't he would fall out of the narrow bunk.

"I'm gonna talk, you just nod when I get things right. That last call was an apartment building right?" Short nod. "If you came back like this something went wrong." Lio brushed his fingers over Galo's back, chest, arms. Quick and clinical. "You seem alright. Team got hurt?" Shake. "Someone else did?" Nod. Lio hesitated, and then, gentler than Galo had ever heard him speak, Lio asked, "Someone died?" 

Galo drew a sharp, shaky breath, on the verge of tears again, and that was confirmation enough. 

Lio squeezed him tight before the tears could resurface. "You did everything you could." Shake. "I know you did. That burning soul of yours won't let you do anything less. You're the number one firefighter in the world and you try to save people with everything you've got."

"They didn't even try to run or hide. They trusted me to save them, and I didn't." That was the worst part. Speaking it put the scene behind his eyelids, bright as the fire. Three people in a dead end hall, probably from the surrounding apartments. He spotted them through the smoke, waved them over, stepped toward them to help them through.

The floor collapsed under the additional weight. Galo in his suit fell two floors. The other three were recovered from the debris on the ground. 

"Hey, Lucia." The whole room flinched when Lio raised his voice. Being aware of the intimacy going on was one thing; being vocally included in it was another. "Where was that call from?"

"Southside," she said, and rattled off the address.

With their attention piqued, Lio surprised them all by chuckling darkly at her answer. "Of course it was. Hey, Galo," he prodded his boyfriend until Galo opened his eyes. The room came into focus behind Lio first, with the squad looking on from various positions, then Lio with the same look of grim determination he'd had during the Parnassus cleanup. "Did you know that neighborhood is mostly exBurnish?" Lio asked him seriously. "There's still not a lot of landlords who will rent to us. When we find one, word gets around. More exBurnish move in." He let that sink in. 

Galo wasn't quite sure where this was going. "I don't think the Burnish set that fire, Lio."

"Of course they didn't, you idiot," Lio said fondly. "Who the fuck would set their own apartment on fire? What I'm saying is those people you couldn't save were probably Burnish. Of course they didn't run or hide. They were always meant to go down in flame. That was the fate of the Burnish." Lio squeezed his arm. "But that means every other person you saved was Burnish too. And they're going to remember Galo Thymos and Burning Rescue came to _their_ rescue too.

"A lot of people are going to say it's what they deserved, to die in a fire," Lio said gravely. And that was all he said for a moment, and Galo remembered quite abruptly that wasn't just what people would say about these Burnish. It was what people _had said_ many times over to Lio these past months. 

Galo took a deep breath. "Hey. If anyone says that, I'll set them right. The world's number one firefighter won't just let someone burn without trying to save them, you know. It's my job to put out fires and save as many lives as I can." 

"And not blame yourself for the ones you can't," Lio chided.

Galo smiled. Not quite his full strength beam, but still a smile. "That's right."

"Hey!" Even Lio turned to face Aina, standing in the doorway. Tear tracks belied her own struggle with the night's events, but she stood tall. "Succeed or fail, Burning Rescue works as a team. We're a family. When one of us fails, we all do. We just have to get better."

The siren wail interrupted her speech. 

"Another call from Southside," Lucia called. Ignis's door banged open. "You think they have an arson problem or something? Two in one night is a lot." Lio slid out of the bunk and Galo darted past him to the truck. Varys and Remy were already strapping in. 

"Aina! Coordinates are sent to your GPS!" Her footsteps were already thundering away to the stairs and the chopper. She'd be airborne and on her way there in seconds, and from the sky she would beat them to the scene. "Everyone on board? Burning Rescue, DISPATCH!" Lucia was usually the last to hurl herself through the doors to the truck before Ignis peeled out of the station, but another small figure hopped in after and slammed the doors shut. 

They were in motion before anyone could process his presence, but when they did, Burning Rescue reacted as one. "LIO?!"

"I'm sick of waiting around for you guys," he said, and crossed his arms. The bulky fabric of Galo's fireman's jacket, usually forgone in his mech, bunched at his elbows and wrists with the motion. "You need something to make your team better? I know my way around a fire. If some idiot arsonist is lighting fires under my people, I'm gonna find him, and if he's one of my people, I'm gonna kick his ass." He met Galo's gobsmacked stare with a feral expression. "Don't get in my way, Galo Thymos. I'm gonna help you get every last exBurnish out of the building this time."

"What d'you think, Chief?" Lucia asked over the intercom.

"If he pulls his weight, he's on."

Galo grinned, full force. Challenge received. Thumb to his chest and spark in his eyes, Galo declared, "Don't forget you aren't Burnish anymore! But if you get stuck in the fire, I'll save you!"

Over the intercom, Aina groaned. "If this is weird foreplay for you two, I'm gonna shoot you with freeze ammo!"

▼▲▼▲▼▲▼

The drive back to the station was quiet of a different caliber than the last. It was the exhausted quiet of a job well done. 

Lio leaned on Galo inside the truck, swaying with its motion. "You got everyone out, Galo," he said, swiping sweat from his face with a gloved hand. He was a mess. Bedhead (made worse by Galo's crying) turned already fluffy hair into a true disaster, and his hair and face and clothes were singed and covered with ash. Galo wiped away the fresh streak of it from Lio's cheek. His hands were soot stained too, and only made it worse.

"Thanks to you and the squad," he said cheerfully. "Aina's right, we're a family and a team. And that includes you, now." He pulled the too large gloves off Lio's hands. "That means we're gonna have to get you stuff that fits. I don't mind you stealing my clothes, babe, but this could be a hazard."

Remy piped in, "Also, take the gloves off before wiping your face. It keeps you from looking like you rolled in the ash!"

Lio looked at him aghast. Varys pointed to the shiny glass shield on his mech, where Lio had, unfortunately, a perfect view of his dismal reflection.

"Oh! That means I get to make him a new mech!" Lucia squealed. Vinny squeaked in shared excitement.

"I didn't even say I wanted this job," Lio said sourly.

"Too bad." Aina's voice rattled over the intercom. "You said you'll make our team better. That makes you part of the team."

"Come on, Lio! I'll sleep in the truck! You can have my bunk to yourself when we're on duty!" Galo offered.

"Who said I wanted that? Idiot!" Lio hissed. But he could feel the weight of their stares, Galo's most of all, and relented. "Hey, Lucia. Make my mech look cool, okay? I'm not dancing around with the same stupid decoration as this guy." He jerked his thumb at Galo.

The truck and intercom exploded in cheers. Galo whooped and lifted Lio off his feet. There wasn't room to swing him around, but Galo made up for it with a tight hug and a kiss to Lio's ash-streaked cheek. Varys and Remy set immediately about plotting tactics for their new squad mate. Lucia was chattering aimlessly about plans for Lio's mech. The intercom was silent static, Aina and Ignis keeping their thoughts to themselves. Quietly, for Galo, Lio heard over the chatter of his _\--their--_ team,

"Thank you." 

**Author's Note:**

> I know everyone uses the "Lio becomes part of Burning Rescue post-film" plot point but hear me out. I'm extremely weak for found family.


End file.
